Deep in the darkness

I love Rilke's Book of Hours, both the original German and Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows' spare and sharp translation. The end of this poem in German sounds like wind chimes stirred by a late night breeze to me, barely rippling the still coolness of the night:  Gott aber dunkelt tief... But deep in the darkness is God.

I, 50

I come home from the soaring
in which I lost myself.
I was song, and the refrain which is God
is still roaring in my ears.

Now I am still
and plain:
no more words.


A reflection I wrote on darkness and light — with a bit of technical advice from Crash and The Egg —is up at DotMagis this week. I talk about praying in the depths of the night during the thirty days I made the Exercises:

"At that hour the retreat house was incredibly silent, the chapel so still I could almost hear the flame in the presence lamp shimmering. “Empty yourself,” said St. Romuald in his Rule, “and sit waiting, content with the grace of God.” In those nights, empty of noise, empty of people, God taught me to sit and wait, to empty myself, that I might be filled with the graces he desired to give me..."

Read the rest at DotMagis.

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For a warm and beautiful look at light and darkness, see writing as j(oe)'s post What Light.